Drilling: The view from Russia.

That would be the very big country growing powerful enough off of its oil money to tell us convincingly to mind our own business in Georgia. That's it right up there next to Alaska. Here's a little anecdote from Tom Friedman:

Palin’s nomination for vice president and her desire to allow drilling in the Alaskan wilderness “reminded me of a lunch I had three and half years ago with one of the Russian trade attachés,” global trade consultant Edward Goldberg said to me. “After much wine, this gentleman told me that his country was very pleased that the Bush administration wanted to drill in the Alaskan wilderness. In his opinion, the amount of product one could actually derive from there was negligible in terms of needs. However, it signified that the Bush administration was not planning to do anything to create alternative energy, which of course would threaten the economic growth of Russia.”

Of course, Edward Goldberg may have gotten the story wrong, or Tom just made it up. After all, he works for those bozos at the New York Times.